This same process is now used by public outreach astronomers to provide a deeper context to the myriad astronomical images continually being produced by the world's observatories. The effort to embed images with relevant metadata is due in large part to the work of the Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP), the team who developed the AVM standard and the tools to implement it. Using AVM, we can encapsulate all of the information that is normally displayed along with an image when it is released and embed it directly in the image. As it is shared across the internet, this additional contextual information is always a few clicks away. Coordinate information provided by AVM can be utilized to display images in their proper location in the sky using tools like GoogleSky and Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope, with little effort on the part of the user. Search tools designed to work with AVM keywords can be used to quickly and accurately find the images you're looking for. In short, AVM is essentially the DNA of an image and is every bit as important as the pixels that comprise it.

This video and podcast steps through the process of adding metadata to Chandra images: